BUIES CREEK — After leading Campbell University through a period of unprecedented growth and record enrollment, Dr. Jerry M. Wallace will step down as Campbell’s fourth president June 30. He will be succeeded by Dr. J. Bradley Creed, who begins July 1.
“The 12 years I’ve been privileged to serve as president of Campbell University have been the proudest years of my life,” Wallace said. “What I hope I will be remembered for is that we sensed that there were opportunities and we were able to do some things that were needed.”
Wallace, 80, who has worked at Campbell for 45 years, was named the fourth president of Campbell in May 2003 following the retirement of longtime president Dr. Norman Adrian Wiggins.
During Wallace’s 12 years as president, Campbell’s enrollment has jumped to over 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The university anticipates welcoming nearly 1,400 first-year students this fall — its largest incoming class in the university’s history. Of the 36 private colleges and universities in the state, more North Carolinians enroll at Campbell than any other school.
Additionally, Campbell opened in 2013 the first medical school in North Carolina in 35 years: the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine. Over the past five years, the university has also added health degree programs in physical therapy, physician assistant, and public health, and launched the Catherine W. Wood School of Nursing, which offered its first seminar in the fall of 2014. In 2016, Campbell will start a Doctor of Occupational Therapy program and open the School of Engineering, pending accreditation approval.
Further, during Wallace’s tenure, Campbell has invested more than $250 million in campus infrastructure and new facilities, including moving the law school to downtown Raleigh and building a health sciences campus off U.S. Highway 421 in Lillington.
“The best is yet to be for Campbell University and we have a bright, bright future,” said Wallace, who will assume the honorary role and title of university chancellor after taking a one-year sabbatical. “I see in the future God continuing to bless and bring blessings to this school.”
Wallace announced in April 2014 his plan to step down as president on June 30, 2015. After a six-month national search led by a presidential search committee comprised of trustees, faculty, staff and students, Campbell’s Board of Trustees unanimously elected J. Bradley Creed as Wallace’s successor Jan. 2.
Creed, an accomplished leader of mission-driven institutions and a scholar and historian of religion, most recently served as provost and executive vice president and professor of religion at Samford University. Before joining Samford, he served as the dean of The George W. Truett Seminary at Baylor University.
When Creed officially joins Campbell July 1, he will be only the fifth president in Campbell’s 128-year history.
For more information about Wallace and Creed, visit www.campbell.edu/thanksdrwallace and www.campbell.edu/bradcreed.
[VIDEO] Thank You, Campbell: Jerry Wallace Reflects
[VIDEO] Greetings from President-Elect J. Bradley Creed